Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Outside of the British naval yards at Syrtis Major there were no modern (by Earth standards) facilities for building iron armored air ships. Almost all the countries that sent colonies to Mars quickly realized the importance of air travel and air power. Zeppelins were a popular alternative to the rare iron clad air ships but there was another source that was readily available for a price.

The native Martians had been building wooden sky ships for centuries and while their technology stopped progressing, the art of ship building reached heights of excellence. All of the Martian ships were wooden hulled and powered by either the wind or by a crew who spent their time literally cranking the shaft that ran thru the ship to power the propellers. These crew members were called “turncranks”.

Most Martian ships carried at least a minimal armament and those that were purpose built as warships were not only quite heavily armed but many also boasted double hulls with rocks between the two parts of the hull to add a layer of protection to weapons and crew.
The various earth nations immediately began to purchase any ships they could get their hands on and rearmed them with modern earth weaponry. Several countries also added steam powered engines to replace the turncrank method. The Americans were famous for adapting existing equipment to meet their own needs. A perfect example of this would be the airship USS Kearsarge the first ship adapted and rebuilt by the Americans from a Martian design. The turncrank method was replaced by a modern force draught steam engine that drove the ships propeller at a steady speed that Martian turncranks could not match.

The most modern weapons available along with an experienced crew made the small vessel a worthy opponent for all but the largest ships.

How the ship was made: While a good portion of what I do is scratch built this particular ship was adapted from an existing Star Wars tatooine skiff toy model. They are readily available from Ebay and run around $40.00 though you can find them for half of that if you are patient. The original toy came with a 4 inch tall Luke Skywalker action figure so you can see that the ship was not originally scaled for 28mm. A cut here and a hole drilled there and presto! A perfect scale ship to go along with the other flying creations for Mars.

I cut down the rails, built a “steam” engine from plastic for the center, gave it a mast, glued on a planked deck, added a propeller, put the all important liftwood on the bottom of the hull, cut a gun port and added a ram in the front. A fair amount of work all-in-all but the effort paid off with a fine looking model.

The only real issue I ran into was that the main hull of the model was the soft poly plastic and required a special glue to make things stick. CA or epoxy was worse than useless on this type of plastic.
My next project in-the-works is a Martian Hullcutter circa the Space 1889 designs. Anyway thanks for looking and if you have any questions you have but to ask! Damn the Tethers! Full Speed Ahead!

About Me

I'm a high school history and journalism teacher, a career I've loved and continued to enjoy. Aside from my family I have several passions-miniature wargaming, movies, books and music. I'm also a died in the wool Mariners fan and baseball lover.